Furnace Festival 2018

The 3rd Furnace Festival was organised by the Sliabh Aughty Furnace Project to raise awareness about the 17th and 18th century iron industry in the area.

This year's Festival focused on producing iron from local ore using bloomery furnaces. These are clay shaft and directly produce wrought or forgeable iron. We used local ores, fuel (charcoal) and clay.

Bloomery iron was the only kind of iron made in Ireland for over a thousand years, from the 6th century BC until the 16th century AD. The Festival aims at re-introducing the production of this material into Ireland. The smelting itself is spectacular and highly educational with links to history, geology, woodland management and many more. The bloomery iron is a unique product from which Irish blacksmiths can make a multitude of objects (‘Irish Iron’).

Here is a report made by Leo Moonen, ironsmelter from the Netherlands

This is a Youtube video of the most successful smelt, 26kg of iron out of 60kg of ore!

Where

Woodford, Co. Galway (in the field next to the ‘Bay’, the reservoir built to power the 17th and 18th century blast furnace of Woodford)

​Coordinates: 53.051379, -8.400237

Training​20 to 24 August 2018

During the week before the Festival, six local people were trained in the skills of bloomery iron making. The trainer was one of the very best: Lee Sauder (www.leesauder.com).

Smelting Weekend​ 25 and 26 August 2018

At the weekend, several teams, including the newly trained Irish smelters, smelted iron ore into forgeable iron. The forging of the blooms took place on the Sunday.

Advice to visitorsAll these furnaces are on private property and permission should be sought before visiting them. All the monuments described are unstable structures and all care should be taken against injury and damage to the furnaces.

Do want to find out more or become a volunteer? Want find out how to visit these furnaces? Do not hesitate to contact us: